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Trinity defeats St. Xavier 2-1 in Seventh Region Soccer Tournament

By Bob White, Special to The Courier-Journal
11:51 p.m. EDT October 26, 2013

Trinity celebrates its 7th Region win over St. X. After regulation, Trinity and St. X were tied, 1-1. It stayed that way through two overtimes and five penalty kicks. In sudden death, Trinity scored its goal, but St. X's goal was blocked giving the win to Trinity. Oct. 26, 2013(Photo: David R. Lutman/Special to The Courier-Journal)

Trinity goalie Eric Goranflo made a diving block of St.Xavier’s last penalty kick by Brad Woodlee to clinch the Shamrocks’ 2-1 victory in the Seventh Region Soccer Tournament final Saturday night on the Tigers’ field.

“I saw his eye move that way (to the goalie’s left), and I knew I had to stop his shot for us to win,” said Goranflo, a junior in his first year of varsity soccer. “St.X is a great team, and they kept us back on our heels the whole game. I was relieved knowing my team had won. I wanted to win for our seniors.”

Trinity’s second victory over the Tigers this season ended their two-year reign as state champions and qualified the Shamrocks (18-2-1) to play Sixth Region champion Fern Creek (19-2-2) in the Semistate Four game at 7 p.m. Monday at Mercy.

After the teams tied 1-1 following 80 minutes of regulation time and two five-minute overtimes, they went into a penalty kick shootout with each team sending six players against the other goalie in one-on-one competition.

Trinity, No.2 in the state coaches’ poll, won the shootout 5-4 over No.5 St.X.

“I just had to stay calm,” Goetz said of his go-ahead kick. “Back in the summer I had a PK to win for my club team and I missed it. I thought about that for a moment.”

Goranflo then thwarted Woodlee to end it.

“I’m glad our players get to play another game,” Trinity coach Dale Helfrich Jr. said. “Goranflo has had 10 shutouts in a row (before Saturday). He definitely deserves to be all-region.”

St.X, which lost 1-0 at Trinity on Oct.2, scored right off the bat when Jack Somervell headed a corner kick by Bobby Buse with only 1:41 gone into the game.

“It was a missed mark and a great header by Somervell,” Goranflo said. “That was all right. I knew we would come back.”

Trinity tied it when Kobie Qualah drove down the right side with Farrar closely guarding him and fired a shot into the left side of the goal with 2:58 left in the first half.

“Farrar’s a fantastic defender,” Qualah said. “I was lucky I got my second wind and had the speed to get around him.”

“Kobie’s a goal scorer, and he makes the most out of his opportunities,” Helfrich said.

After Trinity’s celebration quieted down, Qualah walked up to Goranflo and said, “You are my hero.”

St.X finished 15-6-5, but coach Andy Schulten said he was “unbelievably proud” of his players.

“It’s not the final score I wanted,” he said. “You can’t win every year, but we went down in a blaze of glory. It’s a 50-50 thing on PK’s. The goalie guesses and reacts. We went down with our best game of the year. Trinity’s a great team.”